Thread by @RBrulin

Oct 2, 1981: NYT Front Page: "Bomb at PLO Office Kills 50"
Car bomb in crowded Beirut street. Mysterious terrorist group, the FLLF, claims responsibility. Over 2 weeks FLLF bombs killed 100s of civilians in one of deadliest False Flag #terrorist campaigns ever 1/
THREAD

As John Kifner wrote, the blast was "the sixth and worst of its kind in two weeks" and it "tore the facade from five buildings and squashed cars in the Fakhani neighborhood of Moslem West Beirut." 2/ Link to NYT article: nytimes.com/1981/10/02/wor…

As Kifner explained, following the explosion a mysterious group, the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners (FLLF) called Lebanese newspapers to claim responsibility, as they had after the previous car bombings 3/

Lebanese PM blamed Israel: ''Now that ISR has been prevented fm persisting in its acts of destruction &killing in Lebanon thru its air force or other attacks, it's looking for other tactics, the cowardly ones to which it's currently resorting either directly or through agents" 4/

Similarly, PLO & a Lebanese leftist leader accused ISR (& its allies in Lebanon) for the bombing. The Washington Post also ran article on the bombing, noting that bombings claimed by FLLF "have killed a total of 85 people and wounded more than 450 in Lebanon since Sept. 17" 5/

On same day @UPI ran 3 articles on the bombing. In the first one, UPI explained that the PLO was blaming "Israeli agents" for car bomb that killed 83 people & wounded 225 "in the most devastating attack of a 'secret war' inside Lebanon" & noted that FLLF claimed responsibility 6/

Another article described how "frantic rescue workers dug for 13 hours through tons of debris & broke through a reinforced concrete roof of a collapsed building" before freeing 35 teenage girls who had been trapped in a factory destroyed by the blast 7/

The bombing, UPI explained, had taken place "on a busy street in Moslem west Beirut packed with fruit and vegetable venders and housewives doing their morning shopping." The death toll had now increased to 92, w/ 222 injured 8/

UPI reported that the PLO accused Israeli agents of being behind the attacks, and that the FLLF, a "a shadowy rightist group behind seven other recent bombings" had claimed responsibility. 9/ Here is a link to that second article: upi.com/Archives/1981/…

In that second article, UPI also reported that the blast "was followed within hours by a second explosion in the Palestinian stronghold of Nabatiyeh which killed one person." And indeed, the first bombing had been part of a much larger attack planned for that day : 10/

Indeed: "Six other cars loaded with hundreds of pounds of explosives were found and defused in Beirut and Sidon in what was intended as a devastating blitz against Palestinians and leftist Lebanese militiamen by rightist terrorists" 11/

On Oct 2, 1981 UPI published a 3rd article mentioning these attacks. As Fred Schiff wrote: "A 165-pound bomb ripped through an empty schoolhouse in south Lebanon today, a day after a massive explosion killed 83 people & wounded 225 others in predominantly Moslem west Beirut" 12/

Thankfully, there were no casualties as the bomb "exploded before teachers and students arrived at the school." Schiff then describes in detail the bombings of the previous day 13/ Link to article: upi.com/Archives/1981/…

Schiff adds that "PLO central committee member Shafik Al Hout charged at the UN that Israeli agents had planted the car-bomb in West Beirut and he considered it 'a serious violation of the cease-fire agreement' with Israel in July. 'It seems now it is sort of a secret war.'" 14/

The car bombing of the previous day, Schiff wrote, "was the latest of a wave of terror bombings by the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon that have claimed 308 lives in two weeks." Let's repeat: "308 lives in two weeks." Nearly all of them, civilians. 15/

On October 3, the Washington Post ran an article about the bombing of the schoolhouse (described as "the latest of a series of attacks apparently aimed at Palestinians in the country"), adding that once again the FLLF had claimed responsibility for the attack 15/

Also on Oct 3, Fred Schiff wrote another piece about the bombings, noting once again accusations that Israel & its allies in Lebanon were behind the attacks. He also quotes a Lebanese army spokesman as calling these accusations "baseless" 16/

Also on Oct 3, the @nytimes ran an AP story that noted the PLO's claim that Israel was behind the FLLF bombings, and quoted an Israeli official who "called the bombing part of a ''war among gangs which make up the P.L.O.''" 17/ nytimes.com/1981/10/03/wor…

Oct 4: NYT ran short piece by Barbara Slavin & Milt Freudenheim that gave summary of bombings, mentioned FLLF & added: "Mr. Labadi & PM Wazzan blamed Israel & its Christian allies in Lebanon for the car bomb, but Israel attributed the bombing to internecine P.L.O. warfare" 18/

Here is a link to that article: nytimes.com/1981/10/04/wee… Also on Oct 4, the NYT ran a Reuters story noting that "A 110-pound car bomb was defused today minutes before it was set to explode in a crowded Palestinian quarter in West Beirut" Link: nytimes.com/1981/10/04/wor… 19/

Over 2 week period, fm Sept 17-Oct 2, hundreds of civilians, Palestinian or Lebanese who lived in moslem section of Beirut, were killed by car bombs claimed by the FLLF. PLO & Leb officials blamed ISR (&its right wing allies) & insisted that FLLF was a cover for their actions 20/

Most of these car bombings were covered in the US press: see the following Thread for an analysis of articles published by the @nytimes on Sept 19 & Sept 21 about other car bombings claimed by the FLLF: 21/

The FLLF would continue to be active until the end of 1983. For an analysis of how the NYT, and specifically @tomfriedman , covered a few major FLLF car bombings in 1983, see the following Thread: 22/

In 1983, the RAND corporation mentioned a number of FLLF bombings, and specifically the bombings that took place in Sept/Oct 1981, in a Report on "recent trends in international terrorism": the report is here: rand.org/content/dam/ra… 23/

There, Jenkins & Bass noted that there had been 24 incidents w/ multiple fatalities in 1980 & 25 in 1981, that the number of fatalities had sharply increased, fm 159 in 1980 to 295 in 1981, & added: “A series of bloody bombings in Beirut caused most of the fatalities.” 24/

In a passage devoted to attacks by Palestinian terrorists, the authors estimated that between 1980 and 1981 “16 persons died and 136 were wounded in 19 bombings, grenade attacks, and ambushes.” They then devoted a page to the FLLF 25/

They described the bombings that took place in Sept/Oct 1981 in some details, described the FLLF as a “mysterious new group” that had “appeared in 1980 to claim credit for a series of bloody bombings in Lebanon” & suggested that these FLLF bombs killed around 122 people 26/

Contemporary accounts indicate that this figure is clearly an undercount. Note also that many FLLF car bombs were (thankfully) defused before exploding. Still: acc. to Jenkins & Bass, in 1981 there were some 295 victims of international terrorism AROUND THE WORLD 27/

They also write that in 1981-82, Palestinian terrorists killed 16. The toll of FLLF car bombs for just 2 weeks in 1981 thus represent some 40% of ALL victims of T around world for whole year, or some 8 times more than ALL victims of Palestinian Terrorists over TWO years 28/

It is important to realize the SCALE of this terrorist campaign: indeed, in 2018 Israeli journalist @ronenbergman revealed, in "Rise & Kill First," that the FLLF WAS a creation of Israel, & that Def Min Ariel Sharon was DIRECTLY involved in the Sept/Oct 1981 bombing campaign 29/

In his book, which received rave reviews in the US press when published in Feb 2018, Bergman describes how in 1979 very senior Israeli officials (Ben Gal, Dagan and Eitan) created the FLLF in order to "sow chaos" in Lebanon while hiding their country's hand in these attacks 30/

These revelations come from senior Israeli officials interviewed by Bergman, officials who were themselves involved in the secret FLLF operation, or became aware of the FLLF operation at the time. The evidence appears crystal clear. Unimpeachable. 31/

More specifically, Bergman explains that the Sept-Oct 1981 bombings were ordered by then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon in order to provoke the PLO into resorting to "terrorism," which would have given Israel an excuse to invade Lebanon in the name of fighting ... "terrorism" 32/

Bergman's book has been reviewed everywhere. It is a best-seller. In May 2018 I wrote an article describing these revelations as well as the silence of the US media about this Israeli terrorist campaign. As of Oct 2020, this silence remains ABSOLUTE 33/ mondoweiss.net/2018/05/remark…

In 2019 I wrote 2nd article where I described how, in 1980-81, 2 Israeli journalists for Yediot Ahronot were about to publish story that would have revealed how Israeli officials were behind the FLLF. Story was killed by the Israeli military censor 34/

I should note that I sent this article (link here: mondoweiss.net/2019/10/it-is-… ) to a number of US newspapers / magazines: they all rejected it. Only @mondoweiss was willing to publish it. I wrote about this in this Thread: 35/

I have often wondered what it'd take for the US media to write about Israeli terrorism. Now we know: evidence presented by well respected Israeli journalists that very senior Israeli officers were behind a car bombing campaign that killed hundreds of civilians IS NOT ENOUGH. END

NOTE: I also published about the FLLF for @africasacountry here: africasacountry.com/2019/03/terror…
And in French (w/ translation in Arabic) for @OrientXXI here :orientxxi.info/lu-vu-entendu/…
And here: orientxxi.info/magazine/le-re…